By Vince Teresi
Rosanna and Geremias Rivera Durand and their three children live in a one-room cardboard/scrap lumber house with a dirt floor and corrugated tin roof in the shantytown of Flores de Villa in Peru. The minimum wage in Peru is equivalent to $185 a month.
Realizing they have the power to make a difference and help people like Rosanna and Geremias, the members of the Kennedy High School football team dedicated themselves to a series of annual fundraiser events called “Huts to Homes” to help build homes for homeless families.
This year, the team is working toward the goal of providing a home for a family in the outskirts of Lima, Peru. Kennedy Football Coach David Stavros is a former resident of Peru and is familiar with families who reside there, including the Durand family in the shantytown of Flores de Villa.
“The Huts to Homes project objective is to replace the shanty huts with brick and mortar houses,” Stavros said. “A solidly built home provides security and protection from the elements. It mitigates the propagation of disease and gives dignity to the family members.”
The town of Flores de Villa was previously an area of pig farmers, a garbage dump and a landfill area. Squatters invaded the area in 1992, much to the consternation of local authorities. However, due to the tenacity, desperate need, the intervention of Congressman Jim Ramstad of Minnesota and the passage of time, these squatters now hold property titles for each 90 square meter lot where they have constructed their cardboard/scrap plywood houses with dirt floors. Most homes now have electricity and five months ago received water and sewerage connections.
“Our dream has become a reality,” Clara Gomez said. “I cannot believe we do not have to worry about the drizzle dripping in on our beds anymore or the damp wind howling through the straw mats which was our home before.”
A recent “new home” resident Cleofi Fasobi says, “I feel like a real person now. Before, my children and I would go out into the world after taking a sponge bath and we would look like everyone else. But when we returned home, I would get the creeping feeling we were living like animals. Only God could touch a person’s heart to the extent that they would be so incredibly generous to us. Sometimes I still think I am living a dream.”
Kennedy High head football coach Randy Traeger is proud of his team who has undertaken the project. Moreover, he appreciates the help of the Kennedy Football Family of Friends in the local community who are supporting the Huts to Homes venture…“reminding us that ‘not unto ourselves are we born.’”
Donations to the project may be made through Traeger at 503-910-2072.
